Aug 30, 2010

Naga Fireballs

Sorry for the slight lapse in posting, everyone. The majority of the last week was spent holed up in my apartment frantically cracking away at a couple of things. This is one of them, a two-page spread and spot for Muse Magazine, with art directed by the World Famous John Sandford.

The story these accompany is about the Naga Fireballs, a natural (probably) phenomenon that occurs in the Mekong river in Thailand's Nong Khai province. Dozens of witnesses annually report these pinkish lights that rise up off the waters surface and hover, stationary, before ascending into the sky. Thousands of these lights are reported each year.

Experts credit the lights to pockets of methane gas trapped in the riverbed which are released and ignite when exposed to oxygen. Some superstitious locals credit them to the Naga, a god-serpent that makes its home in the Mekong river. The lights are also called "ghost fireballs."

Fun fact: the Wat Pa Luang temple is a regular hotspot for these lights. The temple is also famous for its monks who keep bengal tigers.

A couple of details:

An accompanying spot, depicting the shadow of the Naga:The final spread, with the title text that I also drew, as well as the article.I did a textured background for the third page of the article, which is overlaid with the spot:

After reading the article, a few obvious things flew to the surface immediately: Buddhist monks, clad in their saffron and red robes, the pink lights, the mysterious Naga. I wanted to downplay both the scientific and mythological explanation for the fireballs and focus solely on the phenomenon. I knew I could hint further at the folklore in the spot, but I wanted to keep the spread relatively grounded in reality. Trawling the internet for reference images yielded photo after photo of the local fishermen who work on the Mekong every day.

Among the few liberties I took with the source material, the biggest was that the article specifically states that the lights occur at night. John mentioned that he'd rather have a light background with darker text overlaid and I was totally for it. Hovering lights at night always evokes aliens to me, and lights in the mist says will-o-wisps, which is closer. Having lights occurring in the daytime also clarifies that these aren't being shined from a source but are themselves the source.

Not only is your technique really sophisticated but your design elements are at a level all illustrators should shoot for. I love how you made the scene in the foreground stand out from the simplified (but still interesting) background.